Patron Quarterly Update - Your feedback! (Patreon)

Hey everyone, thanks so much again for supporting me for three whole months! Three months, I figure, is a good period of time to start to reflect and make some decisions. You can help me make some of those decisions! I've put together a Patron-only survey HERE: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/15d86d0ipV-M1Xsn3FT9ausGwbgEjAtFiXEPX8XEdtxw/viewform 

It's a bit long, but this feedback will REALLY help me out in deciding how to best proceed with this space. 

THE MONEY

Ok so, the way this works is that all of the money from Patreon (and Gumroad, as it happens, so this includes everything from J-Pow sales) is funneled into an isolated account that I see in my bank account. The number that you see on my front page isn't necessarily the number that I get. The number that I get is... complex to determine. At the end of each month Patrons get charged, some cards get declined, some get declined then fixed, Patreon itself takes its cut... and eventually it all settles out to the new number on the frontpage.

Then it has to get funneled through this third service due to my-life-is-complicated-and-being-Canadian-is-a-drag-sometimes reasons. And it seems like right now about $1,000USD is "stuck" at that stage (and I'm working with Patreon support on that -_-... So I haven't actually received the Payments for March or April. It's ok. We'll get that sorted out :)

Then it all gets converted to CAD, and that exchange is also kind of volatile and wacky. Oh and the service that transfers the money from Patreon to me also takes their cut. 

So. At the end of the day, since January my independent account has accrued $1,098CAD. (does not include the $1,000USD that is "stuck"... I don't know what that final number will be.)

This is how I've used those funds so far (Jan-May):

 $47.96 has gone to Dropbox Premium. If I'm coordinating with any external service provider, I need Dropbox. I'm fine with this, I think it's worth that money. 

$642.86 has gone to my remote admin, Julia. This is the person who transcribes vlogs and helps me with video editing/graphic design stuff, I pay her about $15USD/hr and it comes out to about $200 month. So far the biggest thing I've had her do is transcribing vlogs. She's also done some work for me editing the cookie video (and I think she did a good job) and putting together Sketchbook 2015. Obviously this is not out yet - I still have to get it together enough to finish my part of that. She's also helped me put together some of the graphics used here on Patreon (like the calendar). 

Remaining in that account, then, is $407.32. I'll update that number when the stuck values come through. 

The big question for me now is... how should I use those funds going forward?

Based on your feedback, I might be able to upgrade some aspect of the Patreon-delivery process. Some of my ideas:

- Improve Livestream and/or videos by buying some new lights and arms to hold my webcam.  Right now the camera can only sit over my right shoulder and is blocked with my right arm. With a new mic stand I could move it to over my left shoulder. Maybe. And lights are always good. (Estimated cost ~$200 but I haven't even looked into it yet, priority: medium)

- Improve Vlogs by figuring out what the heck I can do to get my webcam to stop refocusing every 5s... I honestly don't know if that's a software thing or a hardware thing (estimated cost ~$100, priority: medium)

- Improve Livestream by upgrading to Picarto pro https://picarto.tv/site/upgrade ($15/mo my priority: low )

I could also (and this is my instinct) save up those funds with the aim of colouring a project that doesn't exist yet. When that happens, it could easily cost $2k or more. That's a dream of mine, and I'm a born saver but I know not everyone else is :) 

Your feedback on how you like various features will help drive those decisions. You can also share your thoughts here!

My Thoughts

Money is changing hands here, and I want to be 100% transparent about that! I want you guys to know what I'm getting and how I'm using it towards the stated goal of making more art faster.

I knew going into this that finances aren't the barrier to my creativity. So of course, despite this Patreon being launched I still face barriers such as "work blowing up all of a sudden" and "being real tired all the time".   I haven't yet cracked that magic formula, so I'm just going to keep tackling this one day at a time and keeping myself as accountable as I can.  :) Overall I personally think this Patreon is going well. I want to keep making it better! 

With regards to specific features:

- I'm getting the hang of Livestreams! I don't mind them at all since I have to do the work anyway. 

- Vlogs are easy for me to record, but I know I can be rambly at times. My biggest questionmark right now is:  Should I keep using Julia to do transcription? Should I hire someone else for a different purpose? I'm happy with the other work Julia does, but transcription to this point has been kind of a pain. It comes in much later than I'd like, and it's a HUGE chunk of change, and I don't know how many of you care about it at all. So... that right now is the biggest thing I'm trying to navigate. My instinct is to stop transcribing vlogs and/or maybe hire a different admin who is local.

Alternatively, and I say this with zero irony, it might actually make more sense to use that kind of money towards alleviating some other dumb stress in my life. I think a lot about doing something like hiring a maid, because the time I spend cleaning house is actually a HUGE chunk of my week. I just kind of wonder what impact that would make on my creativity, but I am hyper aware of "I used Patreon money to hire a cleaner" being super weird. 

ANYWAY THIS IS SUPER LONG, but Patreon is really important to me! I value and welcome your honest feedback with regards to this process, and thanks so much again for your support so far :D